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Arkansas Grade Inflation Report

Office of Public School Academic AccountabilityArkansas Department of Education

Dr. Charity Smith Assistant Commissioner

December 2009

Data Sources: APSCN, Local School Districts, NORMES and TriandData Contractor: NORMES

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The Executive Summary

Arkansas Annotated Code § 6-15-421 directs the Office of Public School Academic Accountability to report to the State Board and the General Assembly by high school the number of students in which more than twenty percent (20%) of the students received a letter grade of “B” or above but did not pass the End- of-Course assessment on the first attempt.

For the 2008-09 school year a total of 58 high schools were identified.

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Grade Inflation Defined

Grade inflation has been redefined by state law to reflect the use of End-of-Course test (EOC) grades in place of the ACT scores.

Please reference Arkansas Annotated Code § 6-15-421 for details. Student grades were supplied by schools to the ADE APSCN Data System for Algebra and Geometry EOC courses. The number of students with a B grade or higher are included in grade inflation for each school.

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Student Grade Calculations

A single course grade was extracted from the grade data set provided by schools to the ADE for each student in the data set for algebra and geometry courses only. An average grade was calculated for students with multiple semester or quarter grades for the same course.

Student course grades were converted to a 4 point scale. Therefore, a letter grade of B is a 3.0.

0 = F 1= D 2=C 3=B 4=A

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The Grade Inflation Rate: End-of-Course Assessments

The Grade Inflation Rate is based on grades for algebra and geometry courses matched to students' performance level on the algebra and geometry End-of-Course assessments (EOCs). Students are categorized as having a B grade or higher, and as scoring proficient or not proficient.

Grades for students with multiple grades for the course were calculated as the average of all grades provided for the student in each course.

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Sources of Data-Grades Several schools did not have grades in the APSCN data set. A

Triand data set was provided by ADE to obtain grade data for the following schools that were missing grade data in APSCN. These schools are listed below:

Van Buren (1704031, 1705026, 1705027) Bearden High School, (5201002), Marked Tree High School (5604017), Covenant Keepers Charter School (6044702) , Hughes High School (6202024), Beebe High School (7302010), and Prairie Grove High School (7206036).

A student data file with course grades for these schools was obtained from Triand and provided to NORMES by the ADE.

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Process for Calculations

The student grade file was merged with the student test file from post appeals, Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) data. Students were matched by LEA and 10 digit unique ID.

The final data set for calculating grade inflation included all students with an average grade of B or higher.

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Calculating Grade Inflation

Grade inflation was calculated by dividing the number of students with a B grade or higher that were not proficient on the EOC by the number of students with a B grade or higher. This proportion is multiplied by 100 to produce the percentage grade inflation rate. \\

The rate represents the percent of students with a B grade or higher that did not receive a proficient or higher score on the EOC.

Students with Course Grade ≥ 3.0 and Not Proficient * 100 = Grade Inflation Rate Students with Course Grade ≥3.0.

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Final Data Calculation

Student grade data were merged with student End-of-Course exam data for algebra and geometry. Students were categorized as having a B grade or higher, and as scoring proficient or not proficient.

The final data set for calculating grade inflation included all students with an average grade of B or higher.

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Recommendations

The Department will make research-based recommendations to the superintendent and local school board of directors that will improve classroom instruction and student performance on End-of-Course Assessments.

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Notes: Special Thanks

Sources of Data-End-of-Course Proficiency Levels

Grades data is made available for school and district personnel to check the grade inflation rates on the ED.STATS portal and in EGuide.

Sources of Data-Grades

Student data for calculating grade inflation were provided by ADE in an APSCN file containing course grades for courses with and End-of-Course test.

Special Thanks to Denise Arola and the NORMES staff.

Data Sources: APSCN, Local School Districts, NORMES and Triand

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The Report File

The attached report file identifies each high school in Arkansas where grade inflation occurs including schools with inflation rates of 20% or higher.